


simply magical

by ssuppositiouss



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - High School, Garrison AU, Insecure Keith (Voltron), Insecure Lance (Voltron), M/M, Magical Realism, Voltron Secret Santa 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-21 20:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13151844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssuppositiouss/pseuds/ssuppositiouss
Summary: Lance Álvarez is attractive and charismatic and in no way interested in talking to Keith. When he starts seemingly reciprocating some of Keith’s feelings, Keith has to wonder what brought this on. No logical reality could make Lance like him. As other, unexplainable occurrences start Keith questioning everything, Keith remembers the wish he’d made on a shooting star some nights ago. . .





	simply magical

**Author's Note:**

> gift for kitsunezakuro on tumblr
> 
> i can't get this fic exactly how i want it and after seeing your beautiful art i'm literally in tears at your talent and can't possibly come close to matching your amazing gift with this but??? i'm terrible at writing fluff tbh but i semi-incorporated all of your prompts in some way i hope you like this even like a tenth of the amount of how much i like your gift to me wowowow
> 
> also please picture this as a Garrison high school AU pre-Kerberos mission but where the sad stuff will not be happening later and Shiro will return fine. sorry in advance for gratuitous short scene use

Keith has always enjoyed flight simulation games, piloting spaceships and aircrafts and hoverbikes at the arcades whenever he could sneak out of his foster parents’ house. Sitting in the actual piloting simulator feels different from all the exams they’d had to take before this practical, the straightforward and occasional situational open-ended questions testing his knowledge of everything so he won’t break the Garrison’s expensive equipment. He feels a rush of excitement the moment his hands touch the controls.

Flying feels natural to him, somehow, and he understands how the machine is supposed to feel, knows how to move, what controls to hit, the commands to input and say. It’s just him and this fake hovercraft, navigating the fake skies.

It’s different from the exams. It’s so much better. It’s freeing.

When he steps out of the simulation, everyone is silent. For a moment, Keith thinks he’s done something wrong. He’s always had trouble meeting people’s eyes, but his classmates are just staring at him. He meets the bright blue gaze of one of the other students, sees the boy quirk a smile at him, and he immediately looks away, looks to his instructor for his results.

“Can you do it again?” his professor demands, not unkind in his tone, and Keith scrambles back into the simulator, eager to practice. He hears vague mumbling, most likely because he’s getting this chance to pilot a second time when the others have yet to get their first try, but he ignores it in favor of this chance to pilot again.

They definitely increase the difficulty this time, throwing him into an asteroid belt, giving him odd terrains to adjust and obstacles to dodge. The entire process is thrilling, and for the first time in his life, he feels like he belongs somewhere, like he is meant to fly.

The simulation ends when his craft takes too much damage from his navigation. He’s disappointed to end this practice, but when he steps out of the simulator, his instructor is clapping a hand on his back and absolutely beaming.

“You’re a natural! A natural!” He feels himself being steered away from his peers, feels their narrowed eyes on him, hears more mumbling.

He wants to pull out of this person’s touch, doesn’t know how to deal with this kind of physical contact, but he’s being introduced to more people and being shoved around different offices. His mind is racing racing racing.

“This boy set a new record for his class!”

“On his first try, too!”

He just wants to fly, he wants to be back in the simulator. Being around so many people flusters him, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say when they try making conversation. He stutters on his words, stumbles between people.

He’s being introduced to another instructor, surrounded by all these professors so much taller than him, older than him, louder than him, when he finally ducks out of their grasp.

He clenches and unclenches his fists, trying to take deep and calming breaths. Everything will go back to normal tomorrow, he’s sure. Once everyone else has their chance at the simulator, they’ll realize he’s just a foster kid who really likes flying, not some prodigy.

He’s almost back at his dorm room when he runs into one of his classmates.

He only recognizes that they’re in the same class because he’s never seen such a pretty shade of blue in someone’s eyes before (he barely makes eye contact as it is, and the accidental eye contact was so piercing that he can’t help but remember), and he’d felt those eyes following him on and off the simulator.

Keith just wants to head back into his room. He can’t socialize this much, and he’s tired from meeting all these new people, from making small talk.

“You were amazing on the sim today!” the boy exclaims, and he sounds excited for Keith, excited about this whole thing. “You set a _record_!”

Keith blinks, staring at his classmate longer than what’s probably polite. Having compliments thrown at him like this (and from a cute boy, too) makes his mouth dry and his face warm and he can’t think of how to reply. His hands tremble, and he tries to think. What is he supposed to say?

“Thanks,” he says stiffly, quietly.

The boy’s smile slips a bit, but it remains firm on his face. “Keith, right?”

He nods slowly. He is curious about his classmate, but he isn’t sure how to do this. They stare at each other for another moment, and Keith realizes he’s expected to continue the conversation.

“Ahh.” Keith scrambles for his next words, “Who’re you?”

It might be from something in his tone, or it might be from the look on his face, but the boy’s smile falls away completely. Keith feels empty at that, angry at himself for making the pretty smile fade. He doesn’t know how to smile or make people feel comfortable. He’s never really had to do it, before.

“Lance,” the boy says back, and his tone is guarded now. He doesn’t seem as happy to be interacting with Keith, but then, no one is happy to be interacting with Keith.

Keith isn’t very good at making conversation. The Garrison had introduced him to Shiro after he’d accepted admission here, and Shiro is pretty friendly. But Shiro also does more talking than Keith does, and he is accepting of Keith’s quiet demeanor. Keith doesn’t know Lance well enough yet. He might have to ask Shiro about this, if Shiro would be okay with listening.

“See you.” Keith fiddles with the belt of his uniform, breaking their eye contact. It’s probably best to end their conversation where it is, before Keith makes it any worse. “Bye.”

Lance is not smiling when he walks away. Keith wonders what else he could have said.

* * *

Of course, after the first incident, it’s only natural that Keith notices Lance more. He never noticed him before, but suddenly it’s like Lance is everywhere, all the time. They share a few classes, apparently.

Keith just. . . never noticed.

He turns at the sound of his classmate’s voice. He normally doesn’t pay much attention to his surroundings when he’s going between classes. The hallways are places for people to socialize, but Keith mostly just wants to get to and from class. He doesn’t have anything to say to people, anyway. Despite his determination to hear nothing, though, he hears Lance. (He’s been trying not to pay _too_ much attention to Lance, but it’s hard not to notice a popular boy when he attracts attention, when he stands out.)

Lance sounds defensive, and the previous jeering laughs of whoever he is with fade into irritated taunting.

“Quit bothering her.” Lance is stepping into a small group of guys, pulling a smaller girl from their midst. He looks furious, but thankfully the situation doesn’t escalate. From his position, Keith can only see Lance’s face, not the expressions of the boys harassing them.

“We weren’t bothering her,” one of them insists. “We just wanted to know how she got such good scores in combat practice.”

“Maybe she’d wanna do some one-on-one practice!” another chimes in.

Lance laughs and wraps an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Too bad for you, she’s practicing with me today.” Lance winks at the girl, and she gives him a small laugh.

“Sorry,” she tells the group, though she doesn’t sound sorry at all. “Maybe next time.”

As the group of guys disperses, Lance and the girl start mumbling to each other in low tones. Lance is the right amount of flirtatious and joking, kind and comforting, and though Keith can’t hear what Lance is saying, he catches the girl’s wide smile back.

“Thanks, Lance.”

Keith watches as the two part ways, and he knows it isn’t his business at all, but it’s a little surprising to him to see Lance this way. It’s sweet.

He’s still thinking about the incident much later, when he sees Lance flirting with a group of girls in one of their shared classes. Who is Lance, exactly?

For the first time in a long time, he finds that he wants to know someone.

* * *

“Lance!” Keith calls, definitely much more loudly than he intended, staring at his classmate’s surprised face. Lance is surrounded by other people, all of whom have stopped their conversation to just stare at Keith. He feels awkward, intruding on them. Suddenly, he can’t remember why he thought it would be a good idea to do this.

But he’s spent a lot of time regretting how he’s interacted with Lance, noticing how Lance comforts his classmates and friends, realizing that there is more to Lance than meets the eye. He wants to know Lance better. He wouldn’t mind maybe being _friends_ with him.

They’re in the middle of the hallway, waiting to enter their next class, dawdling until their professor opens the door.

Shiro always says to try talking to his classmates, to open up and try to make friends. He never thought it was necessary, still doesn’t think it is necessary, but Lance has mystified him since their first encounter and he seems like a genuine person.

“If it isn’t the record-setting mullet-head.” Lance’s smile is directed more at his friends than at Keith, but Keith feels his face warm anyway.

“Practice with me,” he blurts out, thoughts going much faster than he’d like them to go, so he barely has control over what he’s saying.

Lance gives Keith a small smile, but before he can say anything, one of their other classmates interrupts, “Lance doesn’t need you to teach him anything. You’re still one of us.”

There is a pause where Keith repeats his classmate’s words in his head, so he can try following what’s going on. “What?”

“Wait, you think you’re better than me?” Lance is frowning now, and Keith doesn’t know how the conversation turned this way.

Objectively, he is better than Lance at piloting, if they’re basing the skills comparison on their scores on the simulator, their exams. He doesn’t say anything, but whatever look is on his face makes Lance’s own expression fall. His friend gives Keith a look that Keith can’t really understand.

“You don’t need the teacher’s pet messing with you,” Lance’s friend says, just loud enough that Keith can hear. He didn’t think he was messing with Lance, but was Lance only joking when he’d introduced himself before?

Lance remains quiet. Keith doesn’t look at Lance for the rest of class.

* * *

Matt hangs out in Shiro’s room a lot now that they’ve been paired for the Kerberos mission, and Keith joins them for the company, even though he feels like he’s intruding on their joking most of the time. Solitude is something he enjoys so he can ease his mind, but he also likes being around people, feeling their own happiness and excitement since he rarely feels that way himself. Matt is a year or so older than Keith and a year or so younger than Shiro, but Keith never remembers their age difference when they hang out.

“Wait, wait, wait. Before you walked away, what’d you tell her?” Matt is barely suppressing a smile. “When she asked for one-on-one pointers from you?”

“Nothing.” Keith shrugs. “I pointed at the simulator behind us.”

Matt snorts and gives up on hiding his smile, breaking out into full out laughter. “You are a cold, _cold_ person.”

“Why?” Keith pouts at Matt, clenching and unclenching his fists. “She’s the one who didn’t know where the simulator was!”

Matt just shakes his head, the smile never leaving his lips. “Your social skills astound me, Keith.”

This is probably a good time to mention yet another failed conversation attempt with Lance, but Keith can’t bring himself to say anything. He isn’t really friends with Matt, and he doesn’t even want to talk about Lance with Shiro, just yet. He knows he could use some advice, but he wants to figure this out himself. He’s always had to figure things out by himself before.

He can’t get the look on Lance’s face out of his head, though.

“I don’t need _your_ help!” Lance had exclaimed loudly, enough that everyone was looking at them, enough that their professor had sent them both out of the classroom to sort out their differences.

Maybe he shouldn’t have been looking at Lance’s test scores, but Lance was very clearly looking over at Keith’s. He thought it was something they did with each other. He thought that offering to help would be a good step in the right direction for them.

Apparently not.

“You know, I heard the best rookie pilot got in a _loud_ argument with a classmate today.” Matt levels an expectant look at Keith (so this was definitely a point Matt meant to bring up), but Keith simply shrugs and lets them fall into comfortable silence as they wait for Shiro to return.

He’s not sure how Matt heard about it, but he’ll figure things out. He always has.

* * *

Keith glares at Lance when he walks in, surrounded by a small handful of people.

They’re supposed to be sparring, practicing their fighting techniques and honing their physical capabilities. Though Keith isn’t sure what exactly the Garrison wants to train them for, he assumes they know more about space and the different worlds out there than he knows, so he is happy to practice.

He’s proud of his hand-to-hand combat, after all, since he’s had a lot of practice getting into fights when he was growing up.

Lance doesn’t look like he wants to fight or even practice, from the way he saunters into the training room.

“Why’re you here?” he asks, unthinkingly, and his tone must come off as much harsher than he thought, from the way everyone stares at him.

“What?” Lance rises to Keith’s words. “You think because you’re everyone’s _favorite_ , you can just hog the gym?”

“You keep talking shit,” Keith cracks his knuckles, “let’s see if you’re all talk?”

Lance laughs. “Like I’d lose to some kid with a _mullet_.”

He doesn’t even know what a mullet is, but Lance’s tone makes him feel both irritated and self-conscious. He plans to ask Shiro about it later, but now he feels like he needs to prove himself. Though he doesn’t know why, he charges at Lance with more force than necessary.

Lance is a decent fighter, light on his feet and good at dodging, which makes Keith curious about Lance’s fighting strengths. He doesn’t think they’re in close-range attacks, which is apparent by how Keith pins him within a minute. They both roll on the mat before Keith is on top of Lance, breathing hard and smirking.

“Looks like you lost,” Keith says, lips quirked into a small smirk.

They’re both panting from the exertion and staring at each other, and Lance’s cheeks flush before he shoves Keith off him, shouting things Keith can’t understand or even remember.

* * *

Keith adjusts the messenger bag he’s carrying so it doesn’t fall off his shoulder, walking swiftly through the hallways to make it to his next class.

He hears the chatter of his classmates, their laughter as they all stand near each other in the hall, clusters of friends sharing secrets and stories. Keith doesn’t have those. He doesn’t really have secrets or stories or friends (except for Shiro, and Shiro isn’t one of his classmates, he’s an instructor-in-training, so he doesn’t really see Shiro through the school day). He has his classes, his goals to fly, his history that his instructors know but no one in his class does, but that’s about it.

It gets a bit lonely, sometimes.

He doesn’t have anything to say, but he wouldn’t mind standing with a cluster of people who want to spend time with him. He doesn’t know how to get to that point, though, and it’s been long enough that most people at the Garrison already know him as a loner. He can’t really change that.

He makes eye contact with one of the groups by accident and quickly looks away, picking up his pace so he can make it to his physical assessment course.

When he gets to the classroom, though, he has to do a double-take.

They sit alphabetically, so there’s no way that Lance Álvarez should be sitting near him.

He blinks a few times to make sure he isn’t imagining things. But, no, Lance is definitely in the seat behind Keith’s, chatting with the other students who are sitting around them. He has no idea who these other students are; he’s never talked to anyone in this class except for Lance—and that’s because Lance keeps _saying_ things that rile him up, smirking his pretty smirk all the while. He’s not surprised to see that Lance has so many friends.

Keith feels his mouth get dry and his heartrate pick up, and he plops into his seat and pretends he hasn’t met Lance’s gaze.

He waits for his heart to calm before he starts digging through his bag for a notebook, and he hears Lance snickering behind him. He sort of wishes Lance weren’t there, were somewhere easier for him to watch from the corner of his eye. Lance likes to make jokes at Keith’s expense, apparently, so Keith needs to watch him. Not just because Lance is nice to look at. Sometimes.

(Keith’s face feels very, very warm.)

Once, one of Lance’s friends mentioned that Lance was making faces at him in class. Keith is oblivious a lot of the time, but he knows that Lance isn’t the type to make fun of people to hurt them. Lance has always been kind, a friend to everyone, sympathetic to everything even when he can’t relate. Lance’s friend hadn’t seemed mean in telling Keith about this, but Keith doesn’t know how else he is supposed to interpret that information. Why tell him at all?

He wonders why Lance doesn’t like him.

Lance is one of the most popular kids at the Garrison, one of the kindest people Keith has ever met. And Lance _hates_ Keith.

Since they’ve started segregating the students into different classes of pilots, engineers, technicians, they only have a few of their general classes together. Initially, he found Lance annoying and tried to ignore him. Lance is loud, and he makes jokes during class that have everyone laughing (except Keith, since half the time he can’t understand what it is Lance is trying to say in these jokes), and he likes saying things that get Keith flustered.

He tries not to listen to anything the group is saying, but he catches some phrases that mention him.

“How is _he_ the pilot with the best scores?”

“You’d think he’d get a haircut or something.”

Keith touches the ends of his hair unconsciously, hears someone snort.

The only person who comments about his hair is Lance.

“If you weren’t so obsessed with me and my hair, maybe you’d get better scores,” he snaps, irritated. He tunes out their responses, folding his arms over his desk and resting his head in them.

* * *

It’s a cloudless night when Keith sneaks out after hours to stare at the sky. The sleeves of his Garrison uniform are a bit too long for his hands, the rest of it too long and bulky, but it’s a hand-me-down from Shiro (and Keith hopes that he could be even a little like Shiro one day) so he wears it anyway.

He’s always found the night sky calming. Looking at the stars and imagining space grounds him, since he can go out there one day, even if there isn’t a place for him here. It’s part of the reason he applied to the Garrison in the first place, and so far, it’s proven to be worth it, since he has a friend for the first time in his life.

There are so many stars in the sky, and Keith takes the time to recognize a few of his favorite constellations, letting his thoughts wander.

He beat his own record in the simulation ship, and he’s a few milliseconds under the leading time now. His professors are thrilled, and now they keep saying he’s one of the best in his generation. Though Keith highly doubts it (he’s good at piloting, definitely one of the best in his _class_ , not his _generation_ ), the fact that they’re considering his skills like this makes him happy, makes him feel like he isn’t the poor little foster kid that he’s always been.

Keith has recently turned 18, so he may be poor and little (compared to some of his startlingly tall classmates) but he isn’t a foster kid anymore. It was hardly an affair to remember, with the empty _you’re always welcome to visit us_ birthday card from his foster parents, and he doesn’t have friends at the Garrison other than Shiro (and maybe Matt, if Matt considers them friends). He barely remembers the day as something special, other than yet another awkward encounter with Lance.

Keith pulls his knees to his chest and rests his chin on his knees, letting the light of the stars carry him away.

His mind is almost completely free of the Garrison when he sees it: bright and sparkling, painting a path through the sky.

A shooting star.

“I wish. . .”

Keith doesn’t even believe in shooting stars. He believes in science, knows what stars and planets are, understands that beyond the sky is more sky and more life. But here he is, staring at a falling ball of gas and wishing that Lance Álvarez would look his way and want to know more about him. He’s watching the star until its light is imprinted in his eyes, wishing that Lance Álvarez would want to talk to him, would find him as captivating as he finds Lance, would actually meet his eyes instead of making snide comments about his appearance.

It’s really stupid, if Keith thinks about it.

There are so many other things he could (and should) be wishing for—he needs to maintain his grades and fly at his best if he wants to get put on missions, he wants to know where his father is, would like to know what happened to his mother, should hope for the best of luck when Shiro leaves for Kerberos, wouldn’t mind making _friends_ —but instead he’s thinking of the boy with the pretty blue eyes and the wide and welcoming smile, the boy who he overheard comforting his older sister about coming out to her best friend and being rejected, the boy who silently offered Keith a pen when he’d seen Keith’s pen explode all over his uniform even though he doesn’t like Keith.

 _He’s writing as quickly as he can to keep up with his professor’s droning voice, but his pen keeps dying in the middle of the words he writes. He scratches it on the front of his notebook until he can get the ink flowing again, and it lasts maybe a minute or two before dying again. Frustrated, he presses the pen to the paper much harder than he intends, and a large blob of ink stains his notes._  

_“Shit.”_

_He feels someone’s eyes on him (though he isn’t sure why anyone would pay attention to him when they’re in class with a talented professor, a boring one but a talented one), but he’s more focused on the ink blotting his hand and his sleeve now. The pen was dying, how did it have this much ink left?_

_He knows he doesn’t have a spare pen in his bag, since he usually just uses the same one Shiro gave him, and he doesn’t like having extras in case someone asks him if he has something for them to borrow. He never thought his ability to avoid social interaction would cause this kind of trouble._

_Exhaling, he decides he’ll just have to pay attention without taking notes this class. Hopefully the ink staining his uniform won’t dry too much by the time class is over, so he will still be able to wash it away._

_He leans back in his seat just a little, trying to make himself more comfortable, when he notices a movement from the corner of his eye._

_Lance, sitting diagonal and in front of him a seat, is holding out a pen to him. Keith stares longer than he probably should be staring. How had Lance noticed his pen problems? He thought Lance didn’t like him? Lance wiggles the pen again, maybe impatient at Keith’s silent staring._

_Wordlessly, Lance passes the pen to Keith’s fingers, lips drawn in a small smile. Heart pounding hard and fast, Keith knows his own expression is more confused than thankful, but he mouths a thank you anyway, though Lance is no longer looking at him._

_He means to give the pen back to Lance after class, but Lance runs off before Keith can thank him in person. A few classes later, Lance is making jokes about him like it never happened, and Keith is left wondering if it even did._

So maybe it isn’t so unusual that the first thought to mind when he sees the shooting star is _I wish Lance would like me_.

He doesn’t have any false notions in his head that Lance could ever find him attractive, but he feels his own face heat when he imagines Lance’s face, the spattering of freckles across his cheeks, the sparkle in his eye before he cracks a joke, his wide smile when he’s trying not to laugh. He wouldn’t mind if Lance thought those same things about him.

Keith feels like an idiot thinking these things, every bit the lovesick teenager he was sure he would never be.

He isn’t surprised at himself, though. He isn’t surprised that Lance is making him feel this way, that being at the Garrison is making him feel like a true teenager (that _Lance_ is making him feel included, even without meaning to do so).

His blush has barely faded when he hears a small crash behind him.

He startles into an upright position, heart pounding. Did someone hear him wishing? Did he say anything out loud? He spins around, ready to stab whoever is sneaking up on him—Shiro says not to carry his blade around because _protocol_ but you never know.

“Oh hey, Keith!” Lance says casually, as though he isn’t laying on his side behind a fallen crate and the door isn’t squeaking open and closed on rusty hinges.

Keith’s heart sputters. Why is Lance _here_? How much had he seen? He fumbles with the blade in his hand as he shoves it back into its sheath, trying to seem calm. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, you know! Just. . .” He makes a vague gesture. “Lying down. . . Looking at the stars. . .”

“What?”

Lance sighs. Keith stares.

Lance’s eyes seem much brighter and bluer than ever, glowing in the starlight. Keith is entranced.

“Can I sit here?” Lance asks, jolting Keith from his thoughts.

“Uhh.” Lance is in what must be his pajamas, a pale blue silk that shimmers a little with the light of the moon, and he’s wearing giant slippers that look like sharks. Keith can’t figure out why Lance is here. He wants to say no. Lance being here will mean he’ll be tense and trying not to stare at Lance and he won’t know what to say so they’ll be sitting in awkward silence for Lance to poke fun later. “Sure,” he says with a shrug, even though his rational mind is saying _no no no_.

Why would Lance even _want_ to sit next to him? Every time they’re near each other in class, Lance seems visibly disgusted by Keith’s presence. He says things because he wants Keith to hear, to leave.

Keith moves over a little bit anyway, making some room for Lance to sit. As Lance makes his way over, Keith starts running through possible excuses in his head. He doesn’t know why he agreed to sitting near Lance in the first place. Nothing logical is coming to mind. Lance’s arm brushes against Keith’s, and he can’t help his sound of surprise.

Lance’s laugh prevents his racing heart from slowing to a normal pace. “So what brings you to the roof?”

“The stars,” he says carefully, but it looks like Lance already knows that.

“Do you stare at the stars a lot?”

“I. . . have to go,” Keith blurts out. His face feels warm and he’s thankful that it might be too dark for Lance to see him.

“Oh.” He can’t tell if Lance is disappointed or just pretending. His eyes are so bright, they’re so pretty and luminescent. “Can’t handle sitting next to me?”

Keith swallows. No, he definitely can’t. “See you in class.”

He clambers down the stairs without looking back for Lance, his thoughts running as fast as his heartrate, hair falling into his face to hopefully hide his blush. Lance _talked_ to him. And it wasn’t to say anything mean; he just wanted to sit and talk to Keith.

It has to be a fluke.

Keith makes his way back to his lonely dorm room, plopping face down into the bed and sighing. Why would Lance want to talk to _him_? What brought this on?

All the lights, the clock, the outlets, everything electric in Keith’s room seems to glow the same shade of blue of Lance’s eyes staring at the stars. He squeezes his eyes shut.

It has to be a fluke.

* * *

Keith shoves the rooftop incident out of his mind easily once he’s able to fall asleep, and the four hours of sleep he gets are just enough to energize him for simulator practice the next morning.

Everything goes exactly as it usually does, and he’s both relieved and saddened by his own solitude. His classmates ignore him, as usual, and he ignores them, as usual. He doesn’t set a new record on the simulator because his mind is elsewhere, but the piloting clears his head a little, enough that he’s much calmer when he steps out of the machine. His professors are still happy with his accomplishments, muttering to each other and jotting notes that Keith pretends not to see.

The attention makes him feel a little uncomfortable, but Shiro says it’s good that he’s being noticed, that he’s living up to his potential. Keith still doesn’t like the attention, but Shiro’s words bring him a lot of comfort.

“Hey, Keith!”

Keith freezes at the sound of his name, trying to quickly run through the class roster and determine if there’s another Keith in his class. There has to be. No one would want to talk to _him_ , of all people.

“Keith,” the voice says again, and Keith slowly turns around, looking up a little bit at his taller classmate. “Keith.”

“Uhh.” No names come to mind at this boy’s face. The boy has dark skin and bright eyes and a wide smile, welcoming and honest and enough to put Keith at ease just a little. He is the person who told Keith that Lance had been making faces during class. He probably hadn’t meant any harm when he’d said it, but there must have been something on Keith’s face that made this person backtrack on his words.

“I’m Hunk,” the boy supplies helpfully. “I’m friends with Lance?”

Keith nods, unsure if he’s supposed to say something.

Hunk is a little intimidating in how friendly he is, and Keith just _stares_. He can hear Shiro in his mind scolding him for being rude, but he has never been good at this, and he knows that Hunk wouldn’t talk to him without a reason (no one talks to him unless they want something, he’s learned that now).

“Did you. . .” he scrambles for something to which they can both relate, “get to try the simulator?”

If Hunk is surprised at the turn of topic, he doesn’t say anything. “Yeah! Oh _man_ , it actually feels like you’re flying!” He makes a face, then. “Not in the good way.”

Keith doesn’t know how flying could be a bad thing, but he doesn’t mention that thought. There are more important things to be discussing. He still doesn’t know why Hunk is talking to him. Did Lance mention something about yesterday?

At Keith’s continued silence, Hunk switches to a new conversation. “Any plans for lunch today?”

Keith’s scholarship pays for his lunches, and he usually hides in an empty classroom with his meal, so no one will bother him with conversations he can’t follow, so he won’t have to hear the stupid things his classmates are saying (particularly when they’re gossiping about him), so no one will see that he eats alone. He doesn’t want to convey this all to Hunk, though, so he gives a small nod as a response.

“You should sit with me and Lance!”

“With. . . Lance.” Keith feels his face growing warm at the thought of having lunch with Lance, and he hopes that there isn’t a visible blush staining his cheeks. Hunk doesn’t comment on any color change of his skin, so he exhales loudly and hopes the air will help the warmth fade.

Hunk smirks, but Keith doesn’t know what Hunk is trying to say with the look.

“Why?” Keith mumbles, finally.

“It’ll be fun.”

With _Lance_. Keith repeats the words as though something is going to change. There has to be a reason for this, a joke behind asking him to join them. Lance would never want to sit with him, he’s made it perfectly clear how he feels about Keith. “Does Lance. . . _know_ I’d be there?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Hunk says quickly. “He asked me to invite you!”

Keith narrows his eyes in suspicion. Why would Lance want that? “Maybe next time,” he lies, and he feels cold all of a sudden. He doesn’t know why Lance would even consider having him around for lunch, but there’s definitely a joke behind it. He doesn’t even know what the joke would be—would he just show up to lunch and no one would be there? Would they harass him with questions knowing he wasn’t good at talking? Try to catch him in a lie or with a story he’ll be forced to share?

Hunk pouts. “Are you sure? I made a lot of dessert yesterday and there’s more than enough to share.”

“Thanks,” Keith says, waving a hand.

“He _really_ wanted you to come,” Hunk tries. The air around them feels colder still, and Keith actually shivers as he shakes his head. If Hunk seems surprised at the change in temperature, he doesn’t say anything about it, instead waving sadly as he walks away.

“Maybe next time,” Keith whispers, blowing warmth into his hands.

* * *

Hunk’s supposed lunch invitation becomes the furthest thing on his mind when he makes his lunch purchase: a recently defrosted burger wrapped in foil but still dripping onto his lunch tray. He swipes his ID and balances his tray as he slides the ID back into his pocket, adjusting his messenger bag and weaving expertly through the throng of students.

He likes sitting in the empty room at the end of the hall on the third floor, and he borrowed a new book from the library that he needs to finish before their next round of exams hits. He wants to read up on Kerberos before Shiro heads off, and there isn’t that much time.

Keith settles into his seat and starts unwrapping the burger when the door slams open.

“Keith!”

He jumps a little in his seat, fumbling with the food in his hands.

“What the _hell_?”

Lance beams at him, and the air feels warm. Keith hasn’t been on the receiving end of one of Lance’s smiles since the first time they’d met (and he doesn’t like thinking about how much he’d messed up, then), and he’s a little overwhelmed. He doesn’t know if that shows on his face. “Since you didn’t want to join me for lunch—”

“Did you _follow_ me here?” Keith interrupts, though he isn’t angry.

“—I decided I’d stop by—”

“Wait, you _wanted_ me at lunch?” Lance’s presence makes him feel warmer; he’s been shivering since he rejected Hunk’s lunch invitation.

“Unless you were busy!” Lance interjects quickly. Keith can’t read his expression, exactly, but he seems disappointed and expectant, and Keith doesn’t know what to say. He’s still waiting for the punchline, honestly.

“You can stay. . .” Keith stares at his burger. Is he supposed to say more? Are they just going to eat in silence, now?

“We didn’t get off on the right foot,” Lance starts amiably, opening a lunch bag and pulling out a homemade sandwich of his own. His food smells a lot better than Keith’s cafeteria burger.

“Must’ve been you,” Keith offers with a small smirk.

Lance looks surprised, but he offers a smirk back. “I overwhelmed you with my charm, obviously.”

 _You have no idea_. “You?” Keith rolls his eyes, but he feels his lips tug into a small smile. The interaction between them feels so normal.

“So. This was your reason for rejecting my lunch invite?” Lance continues, not allowing a lapse in conversation.

Keith feels his face get warm. “You’re not high on my priority list,” he says coolly, even though his heart is hammering loud enough he’s sure Lance can hear it. He doesn’t want to give off the impression that he’s an awkward loner with a crush on the popular kid, but, no matter what he says, that’s who he is. Lance must know that, and he’s here taking pity.

“I’m sure,” Lance agrees. The sudden fall in his tone is enough that Keith wants to say something (Lance has to know Keith isn’t serious, right—Lance is _Lance_ ), but Lance is smiling again, too quick for Keith to even try interpreting the shift in mood. “But you like me anyway.”

 _Yes_.

“What?” Keith almost shouts, face definitely flushing red. He’s squeezing his burger too hard. “I don’t—”

“It’s cool. I’m willing to give us a try.”

“Really?” He narrows his eyes. Why is Lance talking to him about this? How does he know? What happened between lunch yesterday and today that he would want to have a conversation with _Keith_? He needs to be realistic about this. Lance is talking to him, for some reason.

“Yep!” Lance pops the _p_ sound and smiles widely, making Keith lower his head as his cheeks burn. “We haven’t been getting along too well until now, but we have a lot of gen eds together so I’ve seen you around.”

Keith has seen Lance around a lot, too.

He notices Lance even when he doesn’t mean to, even though they aren’t in the same class designations anymore. They still have general classes together, but Lance was a few points away from making the fighter pilot courses, and he’s been studying more for the cargo pilot designation. In their few shared classes, though, he is sure Lance doesn’t like him. They argue a lot, considering they barely interact outside of class. Lance is always saying things to purposely rile him up, and Keith has too much of a temper to leave it be.

Keith has always gotten the impression Lance likes everyone except for him.

“We fight a lot,” Keith says slowly. “We don’t like each other.”

“I mean, there isn’t really a reason for us to be fighting, you know? I was thinking about it last night, and I think we could be good friends.” He could be _friends_ with _Lance_. “Your hair is still dumb, though,” Lance adds with a wink.

“Your obsession with my hair says otherwise,” he manages to say calmly. He touches his hair, wondering if it is healthy to blush this much around a person. Why was Lance thinking about their messy interactions anyway? Why does Lance want to talk to him now?

“So this is like, a re-do of the past month.” He extends a hand. Keith stares at it for a solid minute. Lance coughs and nods his head at his hand.

“Oh!” Keith hurriedly wipes his hands on his napkins, then on his pants when the napkins don’t seem to be enough. He ignores the face Lance makes at his actions.

“I’m Lance.”

When his fingers brush against Lance’s skin, he jolts in surprise at the static in their contact. It doesn’t hurt, but it blasts its way through his body, shocking him at the energy in Lance’s touch. Lance doesn’t notice anything, though, so Keith ignores it. Lance’s hand is soft and warm, and touching someone else for the first time in a long time makes him blush harder all over again.

“I know.”

* * *

Their friendship starts small, with knowing glances during class, sneaky smiles from Lance that make Keith feel like he understands some secret, like he has plans after class to hang out and just _talk_ to someone (Shiro usually has to stay after class and field student questions and practice his own flight simulations, since he has his own life). They do this for a few days, before Keith builds up his courage.

“Do you want to study together?” Keith asks, when Lance steps out of the classroom. He hugs his messenger bag close and looks at Lance carefully, hoping he doesn’t reveal his nervousness in his expression. Lance is an expert at reading people and situations, though, and Keith is sure that no matter how well he can hide his feelings, Lance will pick up on them.

“Oh.” His tone is guarded. “Still think you’re the hotshot, huh?” Lance wears his backpack on one shoulder, and he shifts it a little as he starts walking. At Lance’s movement, the chatter in the hallway around them dies down, and everyone else seems to stop moving.

“What?” Keith keeps up with Lance easily, especially with how no one else is trying to get to class now.

“I don’t need you to tutor me,” Lance says, glancing at Keith though they’re walking side-by-side. He doesn’t seem to notice anything is weird about their classmates around them.

“I know,” Keith agrees, more than a little lost with the turn in conversation. Maybe Lance really hadn’t meant for them to be friends. “But friends study together. . . Right?”

Lance stares at him a little longer before exhaling. “Yeah. _Yeah_.” Time freezes further, so they can make eye contact. Keith is confused by the way everyone around them seems frozen, by the quick stop of time, so it is literally just him and Lance interacting in an essentially empty building. He supposes it is his own imagination, and he tries to ignore it. Lance continues with a small smile, “Let’s study.”

Hunk is also in this class with them, and he waves them both over to his desk when they arrive at their next classroom. To Keith, it means everything is normal again. He doesn’t know what this new normal is, anymore. It’s weird to get used to, this feeling of having people to talk to, this feeling of having people want to talk to him. He still doesn’t know why Lance is talking to him, what made Lance want to be friends with him at all.

He’s waiting for Lance to come to his senses and abandon their shaky new friendship (abandon him).

* * *

Friendship with Lance is different from friendship with Shiro. Shiro is a stability and comfort that Keith never knew he needed, someone he turns to for constancy and advice. Lance is a bright star. When he looks at Lance he wants to smile, and he catches himself covering his face with his hands so Lance doesn’t see his goofy expression.

Lance makes him laugh and feel like he belongs somewhere, even if that somewhere is stupid, like the cafeteria when they’re eating lunch together. He cracks jokes and comes up with these crazy ideas that Keith is happy to be part of, just so he’s near Lance.

He knows a lot of Lance’s friends are surprised at their new friendship, but Lance doesn’t let anything bother him, and their dynamic is still very similar to what they were before, but with less hostility and more of them hanging out and just _talking_.

Keith really likes this.

He just needs to ignore his nagging thoughts that he’s getting too close to someone too quickly, that Lance will leave him as soon as he knows Keith better. (Instead he wonders about the weird happenings around them, when he interacts with Lance—the way everything has escalated from temperature changes to time pausing to water bursting from faucets and freezing in pretty shapes.)

“What’d you get on your quiz?” Lance thrusts his perfect score in Keith’s face, probably knowing fully well he has the better grade.

Keith shrugs, but before Lance can start a victory dance, he smirks. “You need all the points you can get. We’re on the simulators next.”

“Oh, it’s on!” Lance sprints off, and Keith is quick to follow, noticing and then ignoring the way the posters and flyers on the walls suddenly fall off and start to follow him as he chases Lance.

* * *

Classes have been over for a few hours now, but they’re just sitting on the floor, talking to each other while the custodians clean everything around them. They’ll be kicked out soon, most likely, but Keith feels like it’s just them, here. When he talks to Lance, it always feels like it’s just the two of them.

Something has definitely changed between them, and though Keith is still unsure, he’s happy with the change. He’s happy they are friends.

“Being around so many people,” he admits, “it’s overwhelming.”

“I have five older siblings, man, being here feels _too_ lonely sometimes.”

“You’re the youngest?” Keith isn’t really surprised Lance is from a large family—he has a boisterous personality, a welcoming smile and attitude. He knows how to understand people, he’s naturally talented, and he does it better than anyone Keith has ever met.

“Yeah.” Lance pulls his knees to his chest. “It’s a lot to live up to.” He looks different like this, not like his usual self, and Keith wishes he knew what to say. He’s never been good at words.

“I heard you talking to your sister, once,” Keith blurts out, and he immediately regrets the way he doesn’t think before speaking when he can’t read Lance’s expression. “You comforted her.”

Lance smiles. “She was having a rough time. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to admit to something huge bout yourself and lose your best friend because of it.” He forces his smile wider, stretching out his legs and leaning back casually. “Sorry, don’t know what came over me—”

“You comfort everyone,” Keith continues, since he’s already said one stupid thing and he might as well finish with some of the other thoughts that have run through his mind constantly since meeting and learning about Lance. “You’re good at people, you understand things and you make us feel better.” Lance doesn’t look like he believes anything Keith’s saying, so he adds, for competitive purposes, “I’m terrible at it.”

It must have been the right thing to say, as Lance starts laughing. “You are. But it’s not really a skill.”

“It _is_ ,” Keith says earnestly. “Not being lonely. . . You did that. . .”

The janitor walks past them, pushing water with his mop, and the watery trail he leaves behind pulls up into the air like frozen crystals. Keith stares at it, entranced, as the water rises and the crystals create a pretty background image for him and Lance.

“Wow,” Lance interrupts Keith’s focus, and Keith looks away from the water to see Lance shaking his head. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Keith. Trying to tell me something?”

The look on Lance’s face simultaneously relieves Keith’s worries and makes him blush.

 _Yes_.

“Keep telling yourself that.”

* * *

Their food is forgotten and their voices are hoarse from talking over the cafeteria crowd, but they’re deep in conversation when Hunk arrives.

“What are you two even talking about?” Hunk interrupts with a smile, handing them both something he’d baked the night before.

“Keith’s telling me about some weird conspiracy theories. It all sounds like someone has _too much time_ on their hands.” Lance makes a face and Hunk laughs.

Keith rolls his eyes. Lance isn’t into conspiracies the way he is, but he’s a good listener and he seems to enjoy when Keith gets excited about things. Keith doesn’t have much to talk about, anyway, since he’s never had much to do outside of his foster homes, and all he does at the Garrison is study and fly. Lance supplies the gossip and the daily stories, and Keith is happy just listening.

“If you didn’t think there was some kind of truth to them, you wouldn’t care so much,” Keith points out with a smirk.

“Yeah, Lance.” Hunk gives Lance a look Keith doesn’t quiet follow, and Lance’s face erupts into a dark blush. Seeing Lance blush flusters Keith a little bit, and he starts unwrapping the food Hunk has presented, trying to focus on something else. The air starts smelling like roses and rain, and Keith stares at the food oddly before deciding it’s just another weird occurrence with Lance again. Weird things have been happening, but he figures it’s just his imagination. “What _other_ reason could you _possibly_ have?”

“I hate you both,” Lance decides.

Keith pauses in his examination of Hunk’s baking. Lance is dramatic sometimes, but he likes that Lance is so emotive, since he himself is not. “So you _don’t_ want to hear about the faked moon landing?” he clarifies jokingly.

Lance groans, but he nods and continues staring at Keith as he starts his stories again. Hunk is smiling the whole time.

* * *

“I hear you’re getting along _pretty_ well with a certain boy in your class,” Shiro says pointedly one day, smiling at Keith. “I’ve heard this from several sources, but none of them are the original.”

Keith flushes. “Who told you?”

“You told me you were talking to Lance more,” Shiro starts. Keith had been pretty vocal about his complaints about Lance initially, when they’d both argued a lot very publicly, but he hadn’t wanted to go into detail about their growing friendship, especially with how attached he’s been growing. When the friendship ends, what will Shiro say? “But I had to hear from _Matt_ that you and Lance were laughing so hard in the library you were kicked out.”

He can’t even explain the library incident. Lance cracked a joke that Keith hadn’t understood, and in his explanation the whole situation escalated to a series of bad pick-up lines from both of them, and then the librarian was shooing them from the premises.

When they were in the hall, their stupid pickup lines echoed and echoed (like beautiful lyrics to a song only Keith could hear), so they couldn’t stop laughing as they made their way back to their dorms.

“How did Matt hear about it?” Keith asks instead, genuinely curious.

Shiro shrugs. “Matt knows a lot, particularly about mister-I-don’t-need-friends-I-have-a-knife.” Before Keith can interrupt, Shiro breaks out into a large smile. “I’m happy you’re branching out, Keith. I worried about what would happen when we left for Kerberos, but you’re in good hands.”

Keith’s blush intensifies, and he can’t look Shiro in the eyes anymore. Will whatever he has with Lance even _last_ until Kerberos? He’s still waiting for the day Lance comes to his senses and ditches him. “Shut up.”

“When do I get to meet this _Lance_?”

“Shut up!”

* * *

“You’re friends with Keith now?”

It’s probably terrible that Keith still cannot recognize his classmates by face, but he knows that this person is a friend of Lance’s, though he doesn’t know much about them. Keith doesn’t know if he’s supposed to say anything in response, but he figured people would be suspicious of their suddenly blossoming friendship (he himself is still a little suspicious of the whole thing; everything happened so fast and it feels like a dream, a strange, magical dream). He and Lance used to have such loud arguments, and Keith isn’t really well liked among his classmates.

Lance laughs, swinging an arm around one of Keith’s shoulders. “Yeah.” Keith startles at the touch, face growing warm and unable to make eye contact with anyone. “Mullet here still needs a haircut, but we’re working on it.”

“You’re friends with _everybody_ , seriously.” Their classmate sounds more impressed at Lance than anything, and Keith tries to smile but he’s still very distracted by Lance’s arm on his shoulder.

“We’re still studying together after fifth, right?” Lance continues, and he winks at Keith as he pulls his arm away to start talking to his other friend.

Having Lance _wink_ at him is somehow so much worse (better), and Keith’s face is so hot he swears he can smell something burning. The air smells like smoke and charcoal, so thick that Keith starts coughing, but it passes with time.

As Lance and his friend talk, Keith tries his best to calm all his feelings, but he knows he’s smiling stupidly at Lance anyway.

* * *

Lance is sitting on the floor, legs crossed and resting his weight on his hands behind him. Keith is sprawled out on Lance’s bed, textbooks and notebooks scattered around him. Studying with Lance is an experience. Lance is so good at talking, distracting them both into conversations Keith would never even think of having.

The best flavor of Jell-O, for instance, is something Keith never considered.

Or how to alter their uniforms to look more fashionable. Keith doesn’t mind the way Lance looks in his uniform, honestly, so he doesn’t think Lance needs to change. But Lance has loads of ideas and Keith is content just listening to Lance ramble.

But Lance interrupts their study session with “Something’s been bothering me,” and Keith freezes.

Lance must have realized that this friendship is too good to be true, that Keith isn’t that great of a friend to Lance, that Lance can do better and should leave him. Keith’s heart starts to race, and he finds his notes are suddenly very interesting, his ugly handwriting squeezed onto the tiny lines of his notebook.

“What?”

“You always seem so. . . stuck up.” Keith can feel Lance’s eyes on him, but he can’t meet Lance’s gaze yet. “And, like, I know you better _now_ , but. . .”

“I’m bad at words!” Keith jumps in, finally staring back at Lance. He doesn’t like Lance’s tone, the worry in his voice, the insecurity. He never thought he appeared stuck up; he’s just confident in some things about himself and socially inept in nearly everything else. “We met at a bad time.”

Lance snorts. “Yeah, right after you set a record on the sim and got to meet all the Garrison higher-ups.”

“It was a lot of people.” Keith remembers that day more clearly than he would’ve liked, the way Lance had gone from smiling to scowling, the way he’d felt after using the simulator for the first time, the way he’d gone from happy to uncomfortable after flying and being forced to meet so many different people.

“And you kept trying to rub it in my face!”

“I. . . did?”

“How many ways can you tell me you’re better, dude? You wanted to tutor me or teach me your fighting technique or whatever.”

“No!” Keith scrambles for the right thing to say. “I just. Wanted to practice with you.”

_I wanted to talk to you. I wanted us to be friends. I wanted us to be this. More than this._

Lance shakes his head, a small smile on his lips. “I thought you were making fun of me,” Lance admits. He’s not making eye contact with Keith, but he looks nervous and Keith hates that he’s the one who did this to Lance, even if he hadn’t meant to do so.

“No!” Keith adds, since he can’t keep his mouth shut apparently, “Besides, there are so many other things to _actually_ make fun of you for.”

“Nothing compared to _you_ , Mullet,” Lance says fondly, sounding a lot better than when he’d started the conversation. Keith feels very mushy at Lance’s tone, and he just wants to lie here on Lance’s bed and feel this happiness for a long time.

“Yeah,” he whispers.

“I’m glad I saw you on the roof that day,” Lance continues.

Keith shoots up from his relaxed position, suddenly not so comfortable. “What.”

Lance laughs. “I figured you couldn’t be a huge asshole if you’re staring at the stars and making wishes, y’know?”

Making. Wishes.

Keith can’t breathe for a moment, and he’s clenching and unclenching his fists, heart racing too fast and thoughts running through everything he’d done and said that night. _I wish Lance would like me_. Lance had heard him. Lance approached him for that. They’d become friends because Lance had seen him making a fool of himself.

That should have been fine. Keith should have been fine with that.

But there is still the single factor that Keith has been questioning since Lance had approached him in the first place. Lance wouldn’t have liked him at all, if he hadn’t heard the wish, if the wish hadn’t come true.

Keith’s stupid wish is the only reason Lance is talking to him at all.

Keith doesn’t believe in shooting stars or magic, but Lance has stuck by Keith for weeks now, and he hasn’t wanted to leave or abandon Keith like any of the others. There’s no way he’d be like this to _Keith_ , if not for some stupid magical entity forcing him into this _friendship_ , this _relationship_.

It explains all the weird things happening around them, now. Things that couldn’t be explained before are suddenly very easily explained through magic and shooting stars.

He tries to laugh, so Lance doesn’t sense there’s anything off, but Lance is an expert at reading people.

“Hey, it’s no big deal. It’s sweet.” Lance smiles at him again, and even though he’s nervous and in no state to be comforted by just a smile, Lance’s grin makes Keith melt.

Lance is amazing, so open and understanding and Keith doesn’t deserve him at all. Magic, which Keith was _sure_ didn’t exist until that very moment, is the only thing tying him to Lance now. Lance doesn’t deserve this.

They move back into their studying, silent for a few minutes except for the sounds of pens on paper and pages crinkling and turning. Keith can barely focus on the words.

(And, as if to taunt him, the words literally fly off the page and zoom in the air until they’re simply surrounding Lance, so Keith can just stare at him for the remainder of the night.)

* * *

“I think I messed up on something,” Keith mumbles, as Shiro reads through another giant stack of documents detailing his upcoming mission. They’re in Shiro’s office, since Shiro still has instructor duties to attend, and Keith feels like he’s the troubled student in the principal’s office again.

He looks up at Keith, concern clear on his face. “Messed up?”

“I just. . .” He can’t think of a single way to explain the situation to Shiro without making it sound like he’s an idiot. The whole situation just seems too fantastical to him in the first place. He made a stupid, selfish wish on a shooting star. Magic isn’t even real, he didn’t even think there was a chance of his wish coming true.

But it came true. So magic has to be real. Somehow, amidst the science and physics and logic of the natural order of the world, there is magic, too. Magic to explain the way papers have been flying and the ground has been shaking and everything around him is protesting his friendship with Lance, so he can constantly be reminded that _this isn’t supposed to happen_.

Keith isn’t supposed to be friends with Lance.

“Is this about Lance again?” Shiro asks, and Keith ducks his head like a guilty student again. Shiro had dealt with a handful of rants about Lance, progressively worsening until Keith was basically waxing poetic about him. Shiro bore it all with amusement, but Keith tried to cut back when their friendship had started.

“No.”

“Hit it right on the head.” Shiro knows him too well. “What’s going on?”

“Do you think magic is real?”

“Magic,” Shiro repeats, and the look on his face would have been funny, at any other time.

“The wishing on a star kind of magic.”

“There’s a lot out there that can’t be explained by science yet,” Shiro says, as diplomatic as ever. Keith feels something unpleasant churning in his stomach. “But that’s not the reason you’re bringing this up?”

“No, I. . .” Keith runs his fingers through his hair and exhales loudly. How much detail should he tell Shiro? “I made a wish and it came true.”

“You’re not the type to make wishes,” Shiro starts slowly.

“I know.”

“It could just be a coincidence.”

Keith thinks of Lance smiling at him, and his face gets warmer. _I wish Lance would like me_. “This couldn’t have happened otherwise,” he insists, and there must be something in his voice because Shiro goes along with the magic theory. Shiro is a man of logic and there’s no way he truly believes Keith, but it makes Keith feel a little calmer knowing that Shiro supports him.

“So this _isn’t_ about Lance?” Shiro clarifies. He looks lost at the direction of their conversation. Keith never thought he’d be talking to Shiro about making wishes on stars, so he’s pretty lost himself. But he’s never voiced his concerns about the way the magical changes in the environment have been occurring, either, so he doesn’t have any evidence other than what he’s witnessed himself. “What did you wish for?”

“Something that wouldn’t have come true without some kind of magic behind it.”

Though Shiro doesn’t seem any less confused, he still smiles at Keith, comforting him without realizing. “Just _un_ -wish it, then.”

* * *

Un-wishing the magic of a shooting star is more daunting than Keith plans. He’s started to grow accustomed to the weird magic around him, since he’s the only one who even notices it at all. If he ignores it and chooses to forget about his wish, then he could almost convince himself that Lance is his friend because he wants to be.

A small glimmer of hope twists Keith’s heart whenever he hears Lance laugh, and though he wants to believe it’s real, the more time he spends with Lance, the more he knows it can’t be.

The universe is literally protesting his friendship with Lance, to the point that whenever they hang out, obviously magical happenings occur.

They are eating lunch alone in a classroom when their desks and seats start floating, but Lance talks to Keith as though there is nothing unusual about them both levitating near the ceiling while they converse.

Lance is sitting in the pilot seat of the simulator they’re using for practice when the scenery changes and they’re in a field full of pink flowers Keith has never seen in his life. It smells unusual, like the fragrance he would expect from the flower, but Lance says nothing, piloting as though they’re still in the asteroid belt they’d set the scene to be.

When Keith convinces Lance to skip class, the instructors who seem them in the hallway simply smile and freeze in position, expressions blank as though they are not there at all.

Everything is building up, and Keith feels more lost than ever. He deals with these situations himself, normally, but he wants to talk to Lance about it, wants to get the opinion of someone else. He knows he’s grown too reliant on Lance and his opinion (and his smile), but he’s selfish and needy and he just wants Lance to like him, for real.

Wishes like that got him into this mess, though. He needs to find another shooting star or a genuinely magical wishing well or _something_ so he can free Lance from this.

So everything will go back to how it’s supposed to be.

Lance doesn’t deserve any of this.

* * *

“You’ve been weird, lately,” Lance decides, packing a blanket and some snacks into a bag to serve as their picnic basket. “I have a guess why.”

Keith snorts. “There’s no way your guess is even close.” Unless Lance suddenly believes in the magic of shooting stars and wishes forcing him into friendship with the classmate he’s meant to hate, then sure, Lance isn’t that good of a guesser.

Lance simply smiles, grabbing Keith’s hand and pulling him up toward the stairs to the roof. At Lance’s touch, Keith feels like gelatin, his legs too weak to support him. He almost doesn’t want to look down at his legs, since he’s suspicious he might actually be floating, so he clings tighter to Lance and lets himself have this.

They aren’t allowed to leave the Garrison properties unless they receive written permission and have transportation lined up, since the Garrison is located in the middle of a desert. Though they’ve wanted to leave to the nearby city, they haven’t yet gotten that permission _together_ , so they’ve usually hung out in the dorms or around the school.

“I wanted to bring this up on the roof,” Lance starts, “since it’s where I changed my mind about you.”

He throws the door open and Keith follows him silently. Lance prepares the blanket for them to sit on, like they’re actually at a picnic together, and Keith unpacks the food. His hands are shaking.

Lance only changed his mind about Keith because of the wish. Has Lance questioned it at all? Does Lance wonder why a scene on the roof made them become friends?

“Bring what up?” Keith asks, trying to keep his tone level as they both settle onto the blanket.

Keith’s heart is hammering in his chest, definitely loud and fast enough for Lance to notice, but Lance only smiles, brushing some of Keith’s hair from his face.

“There’s supposed to be a shooting star tonight,” Lance says, voice soft and eyes bright.

Something churns in Keith’s stomach. His mouth feels dry and he wants to simultaneously kiss Lance and shove him aside and shout about how _none of this was real_. Lance only liked him because of that stupid wish, and Keith is a stupid, selfish kid who wanted his crush to reciprocate.

Lance doesn’t deserve Keith.

Keith doesn’t deserve Lance.

Keith nods, unable to force any words from his lips. Not when Lance is looking at him like this, not when their faces are this close, when Keith can feel his eyes slipping shut. He doesn’t know where to place his hands so he puts them on Lance’s hips lightly, trying not to press too hard, hoping it’s the right thing to do.

It’s selfish. He’s selfish.

“I don’t have anything to wish for,” Lance continues, and the gentleness of his tone lulls Keith’s eyes closed, makes him lean forward.

Keith feels the soft brush of Lance’s lips before his mind processes what’s happening, and then he realizes _holy_ shit _they’re kissing_ and Lance presses harder against him.

It is like magic. Kissing Lance _is_ magic.

Keith never thought this could happen to him, Lance Álvarez in his arms, wanting him, kissing him. He doesn’t know what to do with his mouth but he lets his lips slide open just a little, and Lance is slipping his tongue inside and, _oh_ , it’s suddenly very hot and Keith forgets how to breathe it just feels so light and amazing because _he’s_ _kissing Lance_.

One of Lance’s hands is still tangled in his hair, and Keith groans at the feeling of Lance’s touch and of his lips, and he doesn’t know how to make Lance feel this way, too, but he tightens his grip on Lance’s hips so they’re closer together and so Lance _knows_ that he wants this and just doesn’t know what to do.

For a minute it’s just them, heavy breaths and the sounds of spit and the rustling of their clothes as they move to accommodate each other. Then they’re pressing together too hard that they fall, and Lance is laughing when they lie back on the picnic blanket, his hand searching for Keith’s and then intertwining their fingers.

Keith takes a moment to catch his breath, to let his thoughts adjust to this pleasant rush of warmth throughout his body, the smile that’s not leaving his lips. _I really like you_.

He just kissed Lance.

Lance just kissed him.

They just _kissed_.

It was more perfect than Keith could have ever imagined. More than he could have ever hoped for himself.

Lance squeezes his hand, and Keith just wants to melt into his side and stay in this position forever. _I think I could really like you. You make me really happy_.

But he needs to say what’s on his mind and he can’t keep lying to Lance like this. No matter how much he loves this. No matter how much he doesn’t want to lose this.

“There. . . There was a star that night, too,” Keith whispers.

Lance squeezes his hand again. “What?”

Keith sits up a little, leaning so he’s looking at Lance. Their fingers remain entwined even though Keith knows he should let go. “You don’t really like me.”

Lance’s face falls, and Keith can’t read what he’s thinking but he doesn’t think it’s right.

“If you don’t like me, you can just say it,” Lance says, and his voice is so harsh and bitter that Keith is too surprised to respond for a moment. He doesn’t like hearing Lance like this. He’s the one _making_ Lance like this. “I’ll stop deluding myself that _you_ could ever like _me_.”

“I. . .” He can’t bring himself to say it. None of this is real, anyway. If the star comes, Keith will fix everything, and Lance will forget that he ever breathed the same air as Keith.

He’ll forget they were ever even slightly friendly with each other, that they kissed.

What if Lance remembers everything and hates Keith for this? What if he realizes how manipulative Keith really is?

He doesn’t know which situation would be worse.

“I like you,” Keith says quietly, using his thumb to stroke Lance’s hand gently. He says it so quietly he isn’t sure Lance hears him. “Whatever happens, I really like you.”

Lance’s eyes look watery, and Keith wants to kiss him and make him stop looking sad. “I know, Keith. I like you, too.”

“You don’t,” Keith mumbles. Why can’t he keep this? Why can’t he just have _this_? “Look, if the shooting star comes today, you’ll see.”

“See _what_?”

“I’ll wish this back.”

“I saw you wish on the star on the roof, Keith. It’s why I talked to you after.”

“I _know_.” He pulls his hand free of Lance’s, feeling much colder and emptier than he thought he’d feel. He has to let Lance go before he gets more attached than he already is. “But it’s not _real_. None of this is _real_.”

Besides. Lance is going to leave him eventually, whether it is because he finds out the truth or whether it is because Keith fixes his selfish wish.

“On the star, last time. . .” Is he really going to admit this? “I wished for you.”

“I _know_.” Lance seems frustrated, and Keith figures he must be. His mind probably can’t keep up with the reality that he’s being presented. He couldn’t, in any reality, really like Keith. And whenever the shooting star appears, Keith will make things right again.

The sky remains dark, other than the normal stars in the sky.

He and Lance are sitting on the picnic blanket, close enough to each other than Keith can feel Lance’s body heat, but far enough that Keith just wants to reach out and hold onto Lance again. He can’t, though. Not until he fixes this.

“Wishes aren’t. . . real, Keith.”

Lance is no longer making eye contact, and Keith stares up at the sky, waiting and waiting. There are a few stars sparkling in the darkness, and a cool breeze brushes Keith’s hair back.

He feels hollow. He wants to kiss Lance again, wants to feel the warmth of Lance’s touch again. He’s so selfish.

“I didn’t think they were, either,” Keith says quietly. “But nothing else can explain this.”

“Explain what? That we’re friends?” Lance starts to stand up, and Keith tears his gaze from the sky to look at Lance again. He seems so tall and so distant, so far from Keith’s reach. He’s always been so far out of Keith’s reach. “That you actually like me?”

 _That_ you _actually like_ me _,_ he whispers, much too soft for Lance to hear. Lance starts shoving the snacks back into the bag, packing up their makeshift picnic.

The sky begins to light up, and they both look up to the sky as a star lights a path across the dark.

Now that the star is there, Keith doesn’t know how to phrase his un-wish, how to make sure there are no loopholes. He has limited time.

“I wish _Keith_ here would stop being _stupid_ and _selfish_ ,” Lance announces loudly, staring hard at Keith.

Keith flusters, breaking their eye contact. “I wish. . .”

“If this is some kind of joke to you. . .”

He’s barraged with memories, then. Thoughts of eating lunch with Lance for the first time, following Lance around after classes, meeting up to study in the dorms or in the libraries, hanging out and just talking for hours and hours, learning about Lance and his family and his strengths and his worries, feeling like a part of something, feeling like he really likes someone. . .

He doesn’t want to lose Lance. He really likes Lance.

“For a real chance at this, without any of this magic. Before or now.” No magic from his mistaken but honest wish in the past, no magic now, undoing everything. He’ll have to start over, to talk to Lance on his own, to stop their fake fighting for a true opportunity at friendship.

He hears Lance slam the door to the roof, and he stares back up at the sky.

He feels much lonelier than he had when he’d first made his wish those many weeks ago.

* * *

From the heat of Lance’s glare, Keith can tell that his wish to un-wish everything worked, but he can’t tell if Lance is mad about the things they used to argue about or if he remembers everything from the roof and is mad at Keith about that. Hunk isn’t outright glaring at him, but he’s pretty openly staring at Keith. Is Hunk maybe trying to figure out what happened? Does that mean Lance remembers, or Lance has forgotten while Hunk remembers?

Keith knows that he should talk to Lance. At the very least he can return things to exactly how they were prior to his first selfish wish.

He wants to ask Lance to talk to him after class, but he needs to break through the crowd that seems to have surrounded Lance again. Without Keith, he’s always surrounded by people.

Lance always preferred that, Keith realizes. He’d been keeping Lance from being truly happy, by forcing him into friendship with Keith.

The inside of his mouth tastes bitter, and Keith is pulling an ugly face to keep himself from saying something stupid out loud. He’d really been so selfish to hold Lance away from the crowds he enjoyed, just because he hated crowds. And Lance was always sympathetic and understanding but had he not realized how much he was putting Keith first?

Lance deserves so much better, and though Keith sometimes regrets the second wish, he knows it was the right thing to do. Lance deserves better.

* * *

They share a brief moment of eye contact before Lance tears his eyes away, grinning at his companion.

“So, are you not friends with Keith anymore?”

Keith knows Lance knows he’s there. Lance’s answer will say whether he remembers their friendship, their encounter on the roof. He doesn’t know what he prefers for Lance, if he wants Lance to remember or not, but he doesn’t want to lose all the memories they’d had. Even if they weren’t entirely happy for Lance, Keith had fun. He hopes Lance did, too.

Lance shrugs, though, his easy smile undeterred by the uncomfortable question. “I’m friends with everyone, man. Just closer to some than others.”

Keith watches them walk away. His questions are still unanswered, but Lance hasn’t completely rejected him or their friendship. Does this mean there’s hope? Can he apologize?

Can they start over?

* * *

Shiro and Matt are leaving for Kerberos, and Keith feels lonelier than ever as he watches them leave.

Matt gives him an awkward hug—Matt isn’t awkward, but Keith is awkward, so that redefines Matt’s completely normal and kind gesture into an awkward one—and smiles. “Make up with your boyfriend before we get back, dude. It’s been weird not hearing about your stupid antics through the grapevine.”

Keith’s face blushes dark red. “Matt. . .”

Shiro pulls Keith into a firm hug, and Keith falls into the comfort easily, watching as Matt waves and backs away to give them both their alone time. “I know you thought you messed up before, but talking things out will help. I’ll be back soon, but I don’t want you to be alone while I’m gone.”

“I won’t,” Keith lies.

“Make sure you keep up with your practice and your homework,” Shiro adds, clasping a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Don’t let anything get to you.”

“You, too, Shiro.” Keith sighs, staring at his boots and unable to look at Shiro in the eyes. He feels the sting of tears and he refuses to cry about his best friend leaving. “You have so much to discover on Kerberos. Don’t let any aliens get to you.”

“If we’re patient, things’ll work out.” Shiro ruffles Keith’s hair, forcing him to look up. He smiles. “Patience yields focus. If you focus and think things through, you’ll fix things with Lance.”

“Oh my god, go away!” Keith finds himself smiling back at Shiro, despite the swarming negative feelings, and he manages to wave his best friend off to his ship without crying once.

_Good luck._

(He cries when he gets back to his dorm.)

* * *

Talking to Shiro solidifies that he needs to talk to Lance, though, particularly now that Keith has no people to talk to anymore. It never used to matter to him, the solitude. But now that he’s had a taste of friendship, and he knows what it’s like to be close to Lance, he can’t go back to the loneliness. He doesn’t want to.

And he wants to give Lance an apology for everything that happened. Lance deserves to know the truth, if he wants to hear it from Keith.

“Hunk!” Keith finds Hunk in the class they share, the class where Hunk first approached Keith and asked about the possibility of having lunch with Lance.

Hunk bites his lip when he meets Keith’s eyes. “Haven’t talked to you in a while,” he says slowly.

Keith didn’t plan this through. “Has Lance. . . talked to you, at all?”

“No.” Hunk sighs, loudly, rubbing his neck. “But something happened between you two.”

He looks away. Something happened between them. A lot of things happened between them. He kissed Lance. He took back his wish. Things were supposed to be fixed.

“He was a lot happier when you two were friends.” The idea makes Keith flush pink, and he clenches and unclenches his fists.

“Was he. . .” Keith swallows. “Happier? Before we became friends?”

Hunk snorts. “Seriously?”

“Yes?”

“The number of rants I had to hear about how talented you were, your _hair_ the way you _smile_ when you get off the sim?” Keith can’t breathe for a moment. _What the hell?_ Lance liked him before the wish? _What?_ Hunk laughs at the look on Keith’s face, continuing “After he got back from seeing you on the roof, all he could talk about was you liking him and how he messed up.”

“What?” Keith asks eloquently.

“Whatever you said, whatever happened.” Hunk gives Keith a long look. “Fix it? Please?”

Keith’s thoughts are muddled and his heart is racing and all he can think is that Lance might have liked him before the wish, _what_?

“I’ll try.”

* * *

Keith doesn’t take initiative for another week, though, opting to stare at Lance across classrooms and in the hallways. Hunk gives him expectant looks and gestures at Lance in some classes and hallways, but Keith can’t think of what he wants to say.

He doesn’t know what role the wish played now, doesn’t know whether magic exists or not. He tries to remember what he said on the roof, what their conversation might have looked like from Lance’s perspective. He can’t remember enough.

He had been so focused on changing his wish, on freeing Lance, that he hadn’t stopped to think about how this all was really affecting Lance. Selfish. He’s always so selfish.

Sighing, Keith tries to think. He needs to tell Lance about what he thought happened with the wish, what might still have happened, Keith isn’t sure. Talking to Lance will clear it up. He knows he has to talk to him.

 _Patience yields focus_ , Shiro said. Keith repeats it to himself. He needs to be patient, and he needs to talk to Lance with the right things to say.

Impulsive wishing and thinking got him into this situation. Shiro’s advice will help him out of it.

* * *

Keith takes his chance after class one day, thoughts racing through his head too fast and plans not completely in his head before he runs after Lance. His hands are shaking as his fingers grasp Lance’s sleeve, and he tries not to think too much on the way Lance’s expression freezes at his touch.

“Lance,” he breathes, and his voice cracks at a higher pitch from the disuse.

“Keith,” Lance says, and his expression is a mix of excited and angry and completely unreadable. “What are you doing?”

“Can we talk?” Keith pulls Lance into the classroom. They have lunch after this, so he knows Lance has time. Unless Lance has already made plans elsewhere. “About what happened?”

Lance places his books down on the desk, lets his backpack fall to the floor. “Sure. What happened?”

Keith swallows, suddenly unsure. “How much do you remember?”

“What would I _forget_?” Lance’s eyes are so bright and blue, and Keith’s forgotten how it feels to be so close to Lance, to talk to him like this again. “Do you still think magic has something to do with this?”

Keith pulls at a stray thread on his sleeve, unable to look at Lance at all. “It’s like. . . my conspiracy theories,” he starts quietly. Lance doesn’t say anything, and he can’t look at Lance to even try understanding the thoughts running through his head. “But I don’t have any proof other than that, well, that you liked me.”

Lance sighs. “Keith. . .”

“I know magic sounds stupid, and I didn’t and still almost don’t believe it’s real,” Keith is wringing his hands together, thoughts all over the place, “but you went from hating me to wanting to have lunch with me _right_ after I made a wish about it, and stupid magical shit was happening and it all made _sense_!”

“We _kissed_ , and you thought the best way to deal with it was to tell me we couldn’t _really_ like each other.” Lance grabs Keith’s hand and Keith stares at Lance’s face. There’s a range of emotions running through his eyes, and Keith wants so much to just hug Lance and change the way all of this had happened.

“I liked kissing you,” Keith nearly shouts. He wants Lance to understand this, he wants Lance to know that, despite everything, he likes Lance. He squeezes Lance’s hand. “I like _you_.”

“The wishing thing. . . _wasn’t_ about you not liking me,” Lance repeats, slowly.

What? Keith can’t remember the details of their conversation on the roof, but he never meant to imply _that_. “No!”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Do you. . . like _me_?” Keith asks, carefully. His face is burning red, and even though he’s fine with this, he wants to know, wants to make sure. . .

Lance’s face erupts in a dark blush to match Keith’s. “Hunk told me he told you.”

“You like me,” Keith repeats, in awe more than anything, clarifying it since his mind is still unsure.

“For some reason, I do.”

Keith lets out a breath of relief. He feels so much lighter, so much freer. “Can we. . .”

“Be friends again?”

Hearing Lance offer friendship again, this time without any semblance of magic or any chance of a stupid wish being the cause, makes Keith smile. There’s something more real and more daunting about it all. Lance can still abandon him at any time (and knowing Keith’s personality, Lance will probably _want_ to abandon their friendship), but even a little more time with Lance will make it worth it.

“Yes.”

“So, lunch together?” Lance winks at Keith, and Keith feels like gelatin again.

“Let me grab my things.” He’d decided to talk to Lance (and he is so happy he did), and he hadn’t even tried to pack up his notes from class.

“Actually.” He feels a ball of paper whack his head, and he spins to stare at Lance. “Would you want to go out some time?” Lance is smiling, but there’s a hint of nervousness in his eyes that Keith’s started to notice because they’ve been spending so much time together.

“Out?”

“Out.”

“Like. . .”

“On a date,” Lance clarifies.

“On a date?” Keith stutters, all previous thoughts banished. A _date_ with _Lance_. He never thought it would be possible, never thought he would date _anyone_ , let alone _Lance Álvarez_.

“I mean. Yeah.” Lance is definitely nervous now. “You like guys, right? That’s why you wished—”

“Oh my god,” Keith feels his face erupting in a dark blush, “let’s not talk about that.”

“Okay.” Lance smirks, and Keith loves and hates that look on him. “You like guys because you _kissed me_.”

“ _I_ kissed _you_?”

Lance tears a sheet of paper from his notebook and throws another ball of paper at Keith. “Then it’s a yes?”

Keith nods so quickly he’s dizzy from the movements and the blushing. “Yes.”

Lance pelts him with another crumpled ball of paper. “Good.”

Keith grabs the paper Lance had tossed at him and throws it back, lips pulled into a smirk. Suddenly they’re throwing paper at each other and their notes are being crumpled for their paper ball war.

“I just want to make things _really_ clear,” Keith says, finally, when he’s won their battle. Lance throws another ball of paper at him. His heart is beating fast and his hands are clammy and he takes a few shallow breaths. “I like you, and I made that wish because of how much I liked you.”

“‘I wish Lance would like me,’” Lance echoes, with a pretty smile that reminds Keith of why he’d made the wish in the first place.

“When I made the second wish. . .” Keith thinks back to the swarming negative feelings that had filled him leading up to his un-wish. He doesn’t know if he wants to talk about it, yet. There are a lot of things Lance still doesn’t know about him, a lot of things he doesn’t even know about Lance, and they still have time to get to know each other.

“I mean,” Lance interrupts, always amazing at reading Keith’s expressions and excellent at understanding when to stop or continue conversations, “we _could_ talk about how you thought the only way I could like you was through a _shooting star_.”

“Or we could talk about how you thought me un-wishing that was because I didn’t like you,” Keith says pointedly. “Even though I clearly wished for you because I like you.”

“Or!” Lance punches Keith’s shoulder. “You could shut up, and we could get lunch.”

“Lunch sounds _magical_.”

And it’s simply magical, the way all the paper floats around them, the words _I like you_ and _Go out with me_ scribbled and scripted in glowing letters in the air, flying and surrounding them both until they’re collapsing together with laughter and light and love.

(It’s simply magical.)

**Author's Note:**

> oh gosh this fic was a ride but i really hope you liked it!! let me know what you think! :')


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